Newspapers / Elon University Student Newspaper / Dec. 6, 1991, edition 1 / Page 3
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Commentary December 6, 1991 Page Other Voices Excerpts A short history of Hanukkah: "Hanukkah celebrates the victory in 165 B.C. by the Maccabees, a group of Jewish fighters, over a larger and better- equipped Syrian force to retake the Temple of Jerusalem. Led by Judah Maccabeus, the small army fought the soldiers of Antiochus IV, the Syrian king who would not let the Jewish people practice their religion and who desecrated their temple. Once the temple was cleaned, only one day’s worth of oil was available to light it. The oil miraculously burned for eight days. Hanukkah is an eight-day celebration to honor this event. Hanukkah, which started Sunday, is observed by lighting the menorah, a candelabrum that holds nine candles. The center is lit each evening. One other is lit the first evening, two the second and so on until all are lit on the final evening." From the Greensboro News & Record Quotables On child care needs in N.C.: "As more and more mothers enter North Carolina's labor force, the need for affordable, quality child care becomes increasingly crucial to our economy and to the future of our society. Women now constitute nearly half of North Carolina's work force. Nearly 66 percent of mothers of preschool children and 77 percent of mothers of school-age children work outside the home. Despite the growing number of child care facilities in North Carolina, the services available remain inadequate to meet the needs of today's families. Parents of infants, toddlers, preschool children and those living in rural communities have an especially difficult time finding suitable care. Those complexities multiply if the parents work evening or rotating shifts, as most care providers accommodate only the 9-to-5 employee. A few communities, churches and businesses are beginning to care for North Carolina's future. But to adequately address North Carolina's dire need for affordable, quality child care, parents and every institution -- government, business, religious, philanthropic and civic -- must join forces to give our children the safe, nurturing care they deserve." From an editorial by Florence Glasser in the Greensboro News & Rccard l[s HorFA\^\ ALLTFfeJ*S6tT^s ora^?LFRlE^^os/^^ve W- ) Distributed by Tribune Media Services We are getting ready to celebrate the golden anniversary of a dark day and images of the past are already oozing up like oil from the hulk of the USS Arizona. The Movietone news shots of Zeros and subs and ships in flames are out of storage. There are interviews with survivors. A grandfather remembers a friend who died on the deck beside him and cries as if he were 19 and not 69. The elders who were at home tell about the day the world exploded into their America-first living rooms. Where were you when you heard? It looks like December 7, 1991, is going to be a day to relive the infamy. But there are other snapshots as well for this 50th anniversary. At Pearl Harbor, a former Navy aircraft mechanic who survived the attack guides visitors around the memorial. These people come from Tokyo as well as Toledo. "It was a long time ago," he tells a reporter. "Too long for hate to linger." On the mainland, those who remember the war and their grandchildren watch the reruns of this grim "opening day" on Japanese-made television sets with Japanese- made cars in the garage. And while some grumble - - "who won the war?" - - few think of the Japanese as enemies. As an American bom too late for such memories, I hear all sorts of mixed messages in this orgy of history. But the ones that resonate the most in our world are about the moral costs of both forgetting and remembering the past. History is alive, not just in the Pacific, but in Eastern Europe and the Middle East and everywhere people wrangle over wrongs. Remember "Remember Pearl Harbor?" The price of forgetting any searing moment is the fear that we'll do some injustice to Ellen Goodman The Boston Globe collective sympathy. One cataclysm settles back into what we call historic perspective...that endless sequence of cataclysms. But remembering with an intensity that remains undiminished over time and generations, destines f)eople to live in the past. We become the curators of our ancestors' grievances. What was the George Santayana line? "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Well, those who remember too well are also condemned to repeat it. To be stuck in feuds far more ancient than the Hatfields and McCoys. In this, the year of our 50th anniversary, the Serbs and Croats are murdering each other, calling up ancient hostilities from as long ago as 800 years. In the rest of Eastern Europe where history itself was occupied by the Soviets, ethnic hostilities have re- emerged, dangling their roots. And those are modem memories compared to the biblical datelines over land disputes in the Middle East. There is no excuse for sending the past down the memory hole. The final assault of the Holocaust is the "revisionists" denial of the Holocaust. Even a Toyota-driving American is uneasy hearing that the young Japanese know more about Hiroshima than about Pearl Harbor. Not long ago, a Japanese professor told of a junior high school student See Goodman, Page 4 Pearl Harbor Remember it in its proper place: the past Affirmative action angers male workers A letter came the other day from Tom Locker. He is a 41- year-old captain in the firefighting corps of the U.S. Forest Service in Califomia. Locker is effectively denied promotion with in the Forest Service, not because he lacks experience or qualifications. He has 17 years of experience and is fully qualified. He is James stuck in grade Kilpatrick because of the Universal Press important rea- ' son; When ft comes to promotions within Region Five of the Forest Service, no males need apply. This is exactly the evil that President Bush was going to assail before he lost his nerve a week ago. Such discrimination is pervasive within the federal govemment, where "affirmative action" has some highly negative human consequences. The Forest Service story goes back to December 1972, when Gene Bernardi, a female sociologist with the service, complained of discrimination. Eventually she filed suit; the suit became a class action; in July 1981, a U.S. district judge entered a consent decree. Under the decree, the Forest Service did not admit discrimination, but it agreed to a plan of "goals and guidelines" to enlarge the employment of women throughout the affected region. Since then the goals and guidelines have become, for all practical purposes, out-and-out quotas. Two months ago, word spread within Region Five that some fire management officers were telling young men, off the record, not to apply. Richard A. Henry, director of aviation and fire management, issued an "alert alert alert" denying the allegation. Then Henry added: "There is a consent decree requirement that we meet 65 percent female if it is attainable given the applicant pool, but that still leaves 35 percent for other selections." See Kilpatrick, Page 4
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